Understanding Schaeffer’s commitment to the existential reality of true spirituality is essential if we are to have the full benefit of Schaeffer’s books. Furthermore, it will guard us against misinterpreting Schaeffer when we simply pick and choose only those parts of Schaeffer’s teaching that we like.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to give a few excerpts with commentary from my recent book, Why Truth Matters: Francis Schaeffer on True Spirituality, Christ’s Lordship, and Inerrancy (DeWard Publisher, 2026). The book was written to help evangelicals to better understand Schaeffer’s core theological commitments that shaped his life and ministry. In fact, it is my view that we cannot properly understand his other books, which have been unfortunately more popular than his book True Spirituality. To understand Schaeffer, I believe we must begin with the spiritual consequences of what he referred to as a “spiritual crisis” which took place between 1951-52. It is through this experience that Schaeffer tells us it was at this time he came to realize something of the spiritual reality of living moment-by-moment in the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection. This is what Schaeffer called true spirituality, without which, he noted, there would not have been L’Abri.

Excerpt from Why Truth Matters:

“Schaeffer, in a position paper (mentioned in chapter two) presented at the International Congress on World Evangelism, Lausanne, Switzerland, July 1974, used background to True Spirituality to make a point. He was talking about the ‘first reality,’ which he identified as true spirituality. He explained how the book came together over a period of time as a result of his spiritual crisis in 1951–1952. Speaking of the development of the original manuscript, he noted:”

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